


We Need To Talk

by moonmoth (greyvvardenfell)



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Sharing a Bed, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:13:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23588197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/moonmoth
Summary: Julian ponders his decision to invite Reyja to Mazelinka's house, though he already knows he's in trouble.
Relationships: Apprentice/Julian Devorak, Julian Devorak/Original Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	We Need To Talk

He doesn’t realize how small Mazelinka’s bed truly is until long after the lamplight gutters into darkness. He has been holding his breath, doing his damnedest to will his blood back where it belonged, trying not to memorize the contours of the body pressed close to his. Soup or no, too many aspects of the situation in which Julian finds himself conspire to keep him awake, listening to the faint snores and gentle breathing of his bed-mate.

——

“So… how do you want to do this?” Reyja asked, brow furrowed as she examined the narrow mattress.

Julian couldn’t stop himself from licking his lips in anticipation. “That, my dear, is entirely up to you.”

Her gaze darted to his. She was already blushing, and he found himself wondering, with more interest than even he cared to admit, how hot her skin would feel against his. The silence between them stretched gossamer-thin like spider silk, waiting for Reyja to make up her mind.

“I…” She swallowed and chewed her lip for a moment before pushing on. “I guess I could just, um, squeeze in next to you. I really don’t want…” That tantalizing flush deepened. “I don’t want to squish you.”

He almost laughed before the memory of their conversation under the starstrand tree echoed through his head: the pain he’d heard in every syllable as she told him that no one had ever wanted to touch her before; the genuine shock, the suspicion in her eyes when he admitted that he did. God, did he want to, to be with her in every way he could. 

_I hope I’m not coming on too strong…_

“You’re not going to hurt me, Reyja.”

She let out a strangled chuckle. “You don’t know that.”

“Ah, but I do.” Julian opened his arms in invitation, reclining back against the pillow. “As I told you in the garden, I neither saw nor felt anything during your examination that would give me pause.” 

_I want to make something real with you…_

Still she stayed standing, shifting nervously. “Do you understand why I don’t believe you?” she asked, so quietly he could barely hear her. For a moment, he wasn’t sure he was meant to. But the question in the lines of her forehead, the way her hands fluttered as she fought with herself, and the lingering sensation of her lips meeting his, with the sparks of Mazelinka’s brew still bursting like ripe berries on his tongue, told him differently. His heart ached through his desire.

“More than you know,” he said. At the last moment, he stopped himself from reaching up to touch his eyepatch.

_If only we had more time._

——

He'd never been more relieved than the moment she leaned down to join him. She'd chosen to stay with him (with him!) rather than retreat, rather than fetch Mazelinka and tell her she’d changed her mind about sleeping in the hiding hole, or worse: that she was going back to her shop for the night. Julian almost trembled with excitement as Reyja lowered herself to the mattress, doing her best to avoid him despite the dimensions of the bed.

“That won’t do,” he crooned, emboldened by her acceptance to rest one hand on the swell of her hip. “You’ll never be comfortable like that.”

“Sorry, I'm, um…”

Julian tutted. “I won’t bite, you know. You’ve been bitten enough for one day.”

“Ha.”

_You could take more liberties with me._

_You haven’t consented to that yet, though, have you…_

He suppressed another delighted shudder. “Cross my heart, I’m a man of my word. I look forward to proving that to you.”

“You do, huh?”

Slowly, Julian let his arm curl around her waist, fingers ghosting over her belly as he drew her closer. “More than anything.”

She fit against him like a stacked spoon, tucked perfectly into the arch of his body. Almost immediately, she relaxed. Whether she had released her tension on purpose or not, Reyja couldn’t, and didn’t, deny the waves of peace that snuck in to replace it with each wash of his breath over her neck.

“Is this better?” he asked, low and soft.

“Yeah… yeah, it is.”

Cool lips brushed over her spine, placing a line of kisses onto her shoulder. “And this?”

“That’s—” Her voice hitched. “That’s good too.”

Julian caught fire from the heat of her skin, a flush of his own rising to meet hers. The promise he’d made to be a gentleman echoed reluctantly in his ears, so he forced himself to do nothing more than leave a lingering kiss on the side of her jaw before snuggling into her back, nose buried in her hair. It was still slightly damp, he noticed, from the reservoir, and the scent of it struck deep into his core, fanning flames he hoped he could hide.

He couldn’t.

He felt her sharp intake of breath before he heard it, and knew its cause before she said anything. 

“Is that…?”

“Erm.” 

“Really?”

She wasn’t angry, just surprised, unwilling or unable to accept that she might have had such an effect on him.

That wouldn't do either.

Julian propped himself up on one elbow and guided her chin with a press of his hand, turning her head so he could look at her fully. “I will tell you as many times as it takes, my dear: you’re absolutely stunning.”

The candlelight gleamed across his own vague reflection in her eyes, the saliva on her lips left over from their first kiss. For a moment, he thought she might cry, and the idea of causing her pain, however good his intentions, almost sent him into a spiral of regret: for himself and his weakness, for overstepping so soon, for every reckless thing he’d done since he staggered into her shop.

Then she stretched up to kiss him again.

_I had no idea you were so hands-on._

By the time they stopped, Reyja was straddling his hips, guided by his hands on her ass to grind against the erection that strained the stretch of his trousers. How he’d managed to keep from making a mess of them, he didn’t know, nor was he sure what possessed him to finally break away from the warm caress of her mouth. Perhaps it was the very strength of his vow to Mazelinka, and to Reyja herself, that grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and reminded him where he was. Who he was. And how much he had to lose by dragging her into the dismal mire he hauled with him from one city to the next, stuck to it like a crow to carrion. 

But he would take tonight. If it was all he ever got, he would take tonight. Not irrevocably, not irresponsibly, but damn it, he would take tonight. He would cradle her in his arms, he would lavish attention across every inch of her sweet, plush body, he would prove to her that she was the most attractive specimen of humanity he’d ever laid eyes on.

If nothing else, he would leave her with the knowledge that, however briefly, she had been loved.

——

As he lays in the darkness of Mazelinka’s tiny bedroom, Julian watches the rise and fall of Reyja’s ribs. She has her head tucked into his neck, one arm thrown across him with her fingers threaded through the hair on his chest. Beneath the sheet, her legs are tangled with his. The pressure of her thigh in his crotch had woken him, not for the first time. In his mind, he runs over and over again what he wishes they could do together, here in this bed or against the wall or sprawled across Mazelinka’s kitchen table. His body responds but he doesn’t dare move, for fear of disturbing her. 

_If I was a stronger man, a braver man…_

“Oh, Reyja,” he whispers, the words all air. “We need to talk.”


End file.
